{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-sen-rand-paul-finds-federal-taxpayers-downwind-small-town-sewer-debacle-latest-waste-report/", "Sen. Rand Paul Finds Federal Taxpayers Downwind of Small Town Sewer Debacle in Latest \u2018The Waste Report\u2019", "2015-07-20", "2015", "2015-07", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Rand Paul", "P000603", "www.paul.senate.gov", "paul", "https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Rand Paul today released the latest edition to \u2018The Waste Report,\u2019 an ongoing project highlighting egregious examples of waste within the U.S. government. The latest edition uncovers millions of taxpayer dollars wasted on a costly gamble that didn\u2019t exactly payoff. The city of Ray, North Dakota, spent $2.5 million, including $760,000 in low interest loans provided by the federal government, to increase the town\u2019s sewer capacity. The only problem, the town\u2019s population does not provide enough waste to support this plant so the city is now importing waste from surrounding areas in order to support this costly mistake.\n\n\u2018The Waste Report\u2019 can be found HERE or below.\n\nYou may have seen Rob Port\u2019s WatchDog.org article on the sewer debacle in Ray, ND. Expecting a population explosion from the Bakken oil boom, the town of about 600 people nearly tripled their sewer capacity at a cost of $2.5 million. But then oil prices dropped, the boom cooled, and the population in Ray never took off as expected. Now the city does not have enough waste to run its plant and is importing, well, sewage from surrounding areas.[1]\n\nA little town made a big gamble and is now importing sewage. Kind of a funny story; that is, until you learn that the federal taxpayer footed much of the bill for the sewer upgrade. That\u2019s right, through the EPA\u2019s Clean Water State Revolving Fund, federal dollars passed through the state and on to Ray as low interest loans, of which more than $760k was later forgiven.[2] And, that is not counting other federal funds that may have come in to the local water authority.\n\nBut this was not just an unforeseen error. No, Ray and the state seemed to have gotten caught up in the excitement of a boom and missed the forest for the trees. Ray\u2019s 2015 comprehensive plan forecast its population to grow by a minimum of 396 percent by the end of this decade.[3] But Williams County (where Ray is located), projected only 22 percent population growth county-wide by 2020, with a peak of 32 percent in 2025, in its 2012 comprehensive plan.[4] Those figures more closely match historic boom era norms, including in Ray.\n\nSo, it is curious how this project ever got approved. While Ray will probably see some population growth over the next decade due to oil, it is at somewhat of a geographic disadvantage. Ray is between two larger cities, that are better positioned to grow to serve the oil industry, Tioga (pop est. 3000),[5] 15 miles to the east and in a higher concentration of wells; and the county seat of Williston (pop est. 30,000), 35 miles to the southwest, is simply more attractive to the influx of oil workers because of its size.[6]", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T20:20:34Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-sen-rand-paul-finds-federal-taxpayers-downwind-small-town-sewer-debacle-latest-waste-report/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9807238820940256, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}